When I look at Jesus I see the complete opposite of a moth circling false sky. No, Jesus sees, really sees. Jesus sees the forged masks we put on. Seeing accurately will make your life rich and full and also sad—maybe mad. Jesus saw religion’s marketplace— the repackaged selling of formerly accessible things; he was mad. Do you want to be like Jesus? Do you want to see? Sit quietly. Listen. Learn. Then live within the full expression of non-withholding love.
Journal with me.
How can you be/become more like Jesus today than yesterday?
Some thoughts.
Being a Christian can sometimes feel more like a stagnant title than a way of living. But the Christian life comes from the ancient dynamic between a rabbi and disciples.
The Hebrew word for disciple simply means "learner." We tend to think about learning as cognition only, but rabbi and disciple relationships were just that—relational. In these relationships, learning is understood as a high form of devotion because you can’t love a person unless you learn them.
To follow Jesus is to learn Jesus. The term “spiritual formation” in Christian circles means the process of being formed in the image of Christ.
Living a Christian life isn’t as difficult as we sometimes make it. It’s about listening to Jesus, delighting in the wisdom Jesus shares, and allowing Jesus’s way of being to become our way of being.
We do this first by recognizing how we weren’t like Jesus yesterday, in one way or another. Then, as you remember yesterday, ask, “How can I be more like Jesus today?”
Maybe you could reach out in the spirit of reconciliation if there was a fallout between you and a friend.
Maybe you could pray for the person who is really bothering you and ask Jesus to help you love and appreciate them.
Maybe you could spend time with people who might not be particularly admirable.
These are all very Jesus-like things.
How might you be/become more like Jesus today? Get specific: How? When? Where?
Praying this prayer by Howard Thurman might help you as you consider this:
“Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart.
Here is the citadel of all my desiring,
where my hopes are born
and all the deep resolutions of my spirit take wings.
In this center, my fears are nourished,
and all my hates are nurtured.
Here my loves are cherished,
and all the deep hungers of my spirit are honored
without quivering and without shock.
In my heart, above all else,
let love and integrity envelope me
until my love is perfected and the last vestige
of my desiring is no longer in conflict with Thy Spirit.
Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart.”